by Melle Amade
My teeth grind together. I may not have had the two years of flying and training she has, but I’m sure as hell going to give it my best shot.
I’m in the air and flapping my wings and circling the sparring field slowly as I climb. I can see Iona in front of me, making the same slow, gentle climb. But I’m not fooled. Every single one of her movements is with planned ferocity. Even now, I’m sure she has an idea of exactly where and when she’s going to attack me. I had better be ready.
Even as I watch her I realize I’m not.
I’ve warmed up my wings, but I haven’t controlled my speed and I’m flying closer and closer to Iona without even realizing it, practically tailgating. She suddenly stops, hovering in midair. I have no hope of stopping before I get to her. Swiftly I raise my talons, intent on engaging them with her back.
Except she shoots straight up, dodging out of my way.
Exactly what happened before and I know without a doubt she’s going to drop on my back in a second. I swiftly roll to the right, just barely making it out of her way as she plummets down past me. But this doesn’t give me the advantage. I’m off course and confused and angling to the side and trying to turn around. She’s already spun around and is flying at me. I can barely control my wings and she’s doing aerial acrobatics.
“Focus!” Callum yells from the ground.
The horrible truth is I’m trying to and this is the best I can manage at the moment.
My wings feel lethargic as I turn back in the air but she’s already coming up on me. I raise my talons, but I’m no match for her. She sinks her claws into my chest, digging them in with almost a gleeful look. I open my beak to scream but all that comes out is a choked caw. She’s pushing me down and racing me towards the earth. Such an easy victory. It feels like I haven’t even truly battled.
Except I still can.
I hunch forward through the searing pain, raising my wings to touch the tips to her sides. As we hurdle through the air and down towards the dirt, I do what I just saw them do. I shift to my human form, my palms pressed against her raven body and I let the fire come burning, singing down my arms. I stop it right as it gets to my hand, so only a spark comes out directly against the black of her feathers. Nothing escapes my hand, but I smell the scent of singed feathers as she suddenly pulls back out of my grasp, tumbling forward with smoke coming off her sides.
I spin and shift, using my wings to glide down to the ground. We both land and she shifts. Inhaling sharply, before she springs to her feet and comes at me, grabbing my shirt and pushing me down on the ground. She raises her fist above my face.
“What the hell was that?” she shrieks.
Callum, his face like a thousand daggers, comes forward. “Get up, both of you. Fists down,” he says. Shanahan looms right behind him.
“Don’t say a word,” Callum hisses and his voice sounds, well, it’s the commanding voice and there’s nothing Iona can do but obey. We stand with our arms down by our side, heads bowed.
“Why were you smoking up there?” Shanahan asks.
Iona’s razor gaze pierces him and gives a single shake of her head. She can’t speak.
“We came here to get you up to the Manor.” Callum says. I don’t look at him. That’s not why we came here at all. But he’s ready to leave. “Lord Van Arend wants to see you, Iona.”
He steps to the side and motions us towards his Jeep. It’s pretty obvious there’s no way either of us will get out of this. The three of us are leaving training immediately.
11
Iona and I walk on opposite sides of Callum as we go towards the jeep. She immediately goes to the front seat riding shotgun and I’m automatically relegated to the backseat. I get in on Callum’s side even though he won’t look at me, his face stiff and angry. The minute we get in the car Iona spins on me.
“Fine,” Callum says. “Speak.”
“You found the chalice,” she says.
My eyes go wide and I have no idea how we ended up here. “What are you talking about?” I ask.
“You can’t hide it from me,” she says. “I felt your hands burning. You have the magic, the Ravensgaard magic. The only place to get magic is from the chalice of the queen.”
Callum and I are both staring at her. “The chalice of the queen?” he asks.
“The Ravensgaard queen who oversees all of us. Who keeps us safe and hides our castle.”
“I know who the Ravensgaard queen is,” Callum says. “I may not come from that side of the family, but I know your great grandmother. What does she have to do with any of this?”
Iona lets out a big sigh, almost as if she’s been holding her breath the whole time. Maybe even for years. “I came here looking for the chalice. It’s been lost from my family for centuries. And then it turns out a dove knows where it is, but then he doesn’t come back. El Oso won’t take me with him and now…you’ve used it?” she asks.
“I don’t have the chalice,” I say.
Iona leans forward looking at me. “But you have magic.”
My gaze goes to Callum.
His eyes drop forward. “Yes, she has magic. She can make fire.”
A wave of tightened jealousy travels over Iona’s features as her mouth opens slightly. It’s as surprising as it is unnerving. “Show me,” she says. “Please.”
I look to Callum for permission and when he gives it, I hold my hand forward between the two seats and rest it on the armrest. I click my nails slowly together and sparks fly off my fingers. They glow orange in the black car. As they land in my palm, a flame sears its way out of the center of my flesh.
“By all the blackest feathers of the darkest raven,” Iona says, her voice low. “Can you control it?”
I raise my shoulders. “Mostly,” I say. “But I’ve only had it for a month or so.”
“How did you get it?” She asks. For the first time since I’ve met Iona I finally feel like we might, maybe, be equals. I briefly tell her the story about the firewalk with the Pomos and how when I finish the walk, I discovered I had become a Thunder Being. She shakes her head in awe.
“There are many strange things in the world,” she says.
“What do you know about the chalice?” I ask.
“And why haven’t you said anything about it?” Callum says.
Iona mostly ignores him and only looks at me. “You don’t see it out here,” she says. “But back home in Ireland, the ravens still have magic. We’ve always had a bit of magic, but to keep it alive we store it in the queen. She still lives, my great grandmother. She is older than you can imagine. In our family, magic is passed down through the female line. I should be the next inheritor of it. But the chalices, there were two of them, they went missing. If we do not find one, the magic of the ravens will die out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Callum asks, his voice low, almost dangerous.
“It is in the line of the women of our clan,” Iona says. “We lost it once. We must find it again. I thought your father might know where it was, but I don’t think that anymore. He just took El Oso out of the way.”
“You let my father sacrifice himself,” I say anger coursing down my spine.
“I had nothing to do with your father’s choice,” Iona says. “Your father made his decision based on your actions. It had nothing to do with me. And if your father is half the man I think he is, he was leading El Oso away on a wild goose chase on purpose. It was good for everyone. He kept you safe and gave me an opportunity to look for the chalice.”
“But you didn’t find it,” I say.
“No,” she says. “I thought I had a lead on it when I left Ireland. There was an article in the paper where I could’ve sworn was the image of the chalice at some old farm in Iowa. But it wasn’t the right one.”
Callum pulls the jeep over on the side of the road.
“What’s so special about the chalice?” I ask. “I mean, I know it’s used in a magic spell, but what is it that makes this one so special?”
&n
bsp; Iona glances at Callum. He frowns a bit but he doesn’t stop her from speaking. She raises her shoulders and turns to me. “Well, you know the Ravensgaard are a little crazy, right?” She smiles as if the truth doesn’t really bother her. And there’s something about her I really like. There’s something about her who accepts exactly who she is and is willing to stand there and be it without any apologies.
It’s still a loaded question and I’m not quite sure how to answer. So, I just stare at her with no response. She smiles graciously and continues.
“A long time ago, I don’t know, maybe hundreds of years ago-”
“1463,” Callum murmurs.
I raise my brows at the back of his head.
“Fine, 1463.” Iona continues. “There was a Ravensgaard who fell in love with an eagle.”
I feel my skin heating up. I desperately hope it isn’t a sign I’m blushing, because Iona stares right at me and I’d hate for her to know how I felt about Aiden before.
But if she knows anything she gives no sign of it.
“It’s pretty normal for people to fall in love,” she shrugs. “And shifters have had arranged marriages for hundreds of years. Arranged marriages have been around a lot longer than any other type of marriage. So, it’s not like it was in a surprise. But this Ravensgaard-”
“Aoife,” Callum says.
This time Iona glares over at Callum. “Do you want to tell the story, now?” She asks hotly.
“My mother used to read it to me as a child,” he says quietly.
Iona’s hand automatically reaches out to lay on Callum’s arm. She sits quietly in condolence for the loss of his mother, but all I can think is that she’s touching him and it makes the hairs on the back of my head stand up and I want to rip her arm off his. But instead, I suck in my breath and wait for the moment to pass, which it does.
“Aoife was shockingly beautiful,” Iona finally continues. “She had the attention of every shifter in the land. But, of course, it didn’t mean she could marry the one she wanted. She still would have to be married to a Ravensgaard. However, her beauty had won the attention of Elbert, the eagle she loved. And at one of the great gatherings he promised her anything, if she would only give herself to him. When she asked for the one thing that was impossible for him to give, his hand in marriage, he agreed, thinking it was a shared joke because obviously, he would not be able to marry a Ravensgaard. But he came and met her in Ireland near Castle Brannach. In a small castle there-”
“Castle Leigh,” Callum interjects.
“Thank you. And together, alone, they swore their eternal love for each other and they carried on a marriage ceremony with no officiant, but she believed he would hold true to his word and that night they consummated their marriage.”
I’m staring at my hands, which are in my lap and I’m making a real effort to not click my fingernails together. And I wonder if Callum and I will ever do that. I don’t dare look up because Iona’s looking at me and what if they already did? I mean the last time I saw the two of them together they were betrothed and supposed to wed.
I take a deep breath before I can meet her gaze. “So, then what happened?” I ask strongly, keeping my voice steady and my gaze direct.
“Well what do you think happens after a man has his way with a young woman?” Iona asks, but now she’s not looking at me. Her gaze is gone to Callum and my heart sinks. I mean, I shouldn’t expect Callum hasn’t had sex, I mean a lot of kids do, but I don’t know, maybe it would’ve been nice if he hadn’t yet. My skin is burning as I’m thinking this and I duck my head, not daring to look at either one. Callum just looks at Iona.
“Just tell her the story,” he says.
I can’t read enough into what he says to know what it means.
“The next day, Elbert has to, of course, return to the Netherlands, to his people, and take care of some business, so he leaves and Aoife returns to Castle Brannach believing she’s married. Only to discover the entire Ravensgaard troop is preparing to go to the Netherlands to celebrate the marriage of Lord Elbert to his cousin, another eagle.”
I can’t stop the small gasp that comes out of my mouth. Although it may not have been surprising, based on the tone of the story, I can only imagine how the Ravensgaard woman felt, especially back then. It wasn’t just her heart at stake, it was her entire life as a woman. It was detestable to have had sex before marriage.
“What did she do?” I ask.
“She did what any Ravensgaard would do,” Iona says and her gaze is fully on Callum again.
And I suddenly have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach drawing me down into an abyss. Callum and Iona were sworn to wed and now, from what he’s told me he has broken their troth.
“She went to the wedding and kept silence,” Iona continues.
“Through the whole wedding?” I ask.
“No,” Iona says. “There was no actual wedding. Back then the wedding ceremonies lasted for over a week with many rituals and ceremonies. It was during the hunt she did it.”
“Did what?” I ask.
“She killed him,” Callum says, his voice quiet and still.
Iona’s face is full of seriousness as she watches him. She takes a deep breath before she turns to me. “That day she passed it off as a hunting accident, making it seem like they had just been off on a chase after some beast and he had slipped from his horse and broken his neck. But after the Ravensgaard went home, she fell into a deep depression. For although he betrayed her in all ways, he was also gone.
“One year later, on the anniversary of what Aoife believed was their wedding, they found her body in the same small castle where they had met. She had written the story out to make sure nobody misunderstood and she claimed responsibility for his death and professed apology to the Eagles. But the damage had been done. She was gone and so was Elbert. At the time, there had been a great feud between the Ravensgaard and the Eagles, but this time it could not be repaired, for each blamed the other for the death of their heir. The families did not regain a relationship for three hundred years.”
I sit there in the silence of Callum’s Jeep, letting the words sink in and the horror of the love story echo in the small metal space.
“But what about the chalice?” I ask.
“That night during their, you know, ‘marriage ceremony,’” Iona gives air quotes with her fingers. “They used two chalices to drink from. They were the historic chalices of the Ravensgaard clan. They had been used in marriage ceremonies for over a thousand years, so Aoife had gotten them out of Castle Brannach and brought them to Castle Leigh, believing they would help to solidify her marriage with Elbert.”
“Which, obviously, they didn’t,” Callum says.
“But they should have,” Iona says, looking genuinely concerned.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because those chalices are made from the iron ore taken out of the base of the ground Castle Brannach sits on. They’ve been infused by Ravensgaard magic, which is arguably the oldest shifter magic in all the world. They were blessed and anointed by my ancestors and used for every magic ceremony since they were first made. They were part of the original magic spell that today hides Castle Brannach from humans.”
“But you can’t bind somebody to you with magic,” I say. “Only love does that.”
Iona raises her eyebrows and Callum stares forward through the windscreen before starting the vehicle and pulling it back off the side of the road.
“Well, in any case,” Iona continues. “The chalices weren’t there when they went to Castle Leigh. Somehow, they had gone missing and they remained missing for hundreds and hundreds of years. My family, my line of women have been searching for them the whole time. “
“Don’t you think maybe she just buried them?” I ask.
“No, we think they were stolen.”
“But they had to have been found at some point,” Callum says. “In that spell book we found it said the way to use the magic of man to infuse som
eone with magic powers, it mentions the chalice. I’m pretty sure, Shae, they were talking very specifically about the Ravensgaard chalice.”
“Then don’t you think El Oso already found it?” I ask. “I mean, he’s clearly got magic.”
“I think he must’ve found one of them somehow,” Iona says.
“But now he’s looking for the second one, so somehow they were found and separated. One has been used and one is still missing. It’s the missing one we’re searching for.”
“But how could my father know where it is?” I ask.
“I don’t think your father actually knew where it was,” Iona says. “I just think he was trying to save you. And he couldn’t have known enough about the stories.”
“And El Oso would’ve been desperate enough to follow him to the ends of the Earth to try to find what he was looking for.”
The eagles that perch on the top of each side of the gates to Van Arend Manor stare down at me grimly as we go through the entrance.
We are looking for something that has been lost for hundreds of years, and for my father, who I now realize went on a suicide mission to save me.
12
We’re quiet in the truck driving back to the house as “Duck!” Callum calls as the massive gates of Van Arend Manor shut behind us. He grabs his phone in one hand as I shrink in the backseat as low as possible.
“Shift,” Iona whispers. And I can tell just by the tone in her voice that I need to do it now. I shift without question, immediately becoming a small black creature in the black leather-bound seat vehicle, barely noticeable to any prying eyes. But from what I can see, looking up through the tinted windows, Ravensgaard are flying in against the bright blue sky.
“The Order is here,” Iona hisses.
I angle for a view out the window, where a caravan of vehicles is parked out in front of the massive main entrance.
“We missed messages from Aiden and Zan,” Callum says, glaring at his cell phone. “You have to take her out of here,” he says to Iona.